


If the drinking don't kill you, the memories will

by zelda_zee



Category: Justified
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 10:22:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/429984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some memories are just too hard to escape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If the drinking don't kill you, the memories will

Weeks passed since the arrest, then months. Raylan kept his head down, did his job, fucked Lindsey every other week or so, paid the occasional visit to Loretta just to be sure she was still holding her own in the world. Things were relatively calm, relatively normal. Most of all, Raylan stayed the hell away from Harlan. Nothing good ever came of him going down there.

Raylan wasn’t in the courtroom on the day they sentenced Arlo to life in prison without parole. He hadn’t been in the courtroom on any other day of the trial either. Hadn’t talked about it to a single soul, not Art when he’d tried, not Winona when she had. Closest he’d come was when Tim took him out and got him drunk on bourbon and asked him, after the fourth shot, whether he was doing okay and Raylan had said he was doing _just fine, thank you_ and Tim had said _okay then_ and signaled the bartender for another round. 

It was past last call, just Raylan left at the bar, and Lindsey wiping down the counter, washing the last of the glasses. He’d been thinking about Boyd Crowder a lot lately, trying to ignore that itch he always got when it had been a while since they’d seen each other. Feeling the urge to jump in his car and drive to Harlan for no other reason than to see what Boyd was up to. Whatever it was, Raylan figured it was bound to be illegal and therefore in need of looking into.

Sometimes when he was drunk, he couldn’t keep ahold of the filter he’d erected between who he had been and who he was now. That barrier would dissolve away and he’d be left facing memories he normally worked hard to keep at bay. Tonight was one of those nights. It was Arlo’s fault, for disrupting Raylan’s peace of mind by getting himself locked away for life. But Raylan wasn’t thinking about Arlo.

 

_A day later, and Raylan’s hand still shook as he picked up his drink._

He could tell Boyd noticed it when he slid onto the bar stool next to his, but he didn’t say anything, just ordered a beer and a shot. Technically, they were underage, but nobody told the Crowders or the Givens no in Harlan.

When Boyd lifted his own drink, his hand was steady.

“I ain’t going back,” Raylan said, not liking the way his voice wavered. “I ain’t gonna do it, Boyd. I’m done.”

Boyd nodded, like he’d already figured that out. “Okay, Raylan.”

“I mean it. I’ve had it.” He twitched, a full body spasm. It’d been happening every once in a while since they got out of the mine.

“I know. It’s okay.” Boyd put a placating hand on Raylan’s forearm, but Raylan shook him off.

“Don’t – don’t _coddle_ me, Boyd. I’m fine.” 

“Yes, I can see that.”

Raylan grimaced, went to pick up his drink before he remembered the tremor in his hands. “Fuck,” he whispered.

Boyd reached over and picked up Raylan’s drink, drained it in a long swallow.

“That was mine,” Raylan said.

“That ain’t what you need.” Boyd got up and started walking to the back of the bar, towards the door that led outside into the yard they’d sneak out to when they wanted to smoke up. He turned back when he realized Raylan wasn’t following. 

“Well, c’mon.” Boyd waited until Raylan caught up to him and pushed him out into the warm dusk with a hand between his shoulder blades.

Outside, Raylan turned to ask what they were doing and Boyd sidled up to him and just didn’t stop, kept on coming until he was standing right in front of Raylan. This close, Boyd’s eyes were huge, dark and too intense, and what Raylan read in them made him want to take a step back. He didn’t though, he held his ground, just put his hands lightly on Boyd’s chest.

"What d'you think you're doing?"

Boyd smiled up at him, a conspiratorial glint in his eye. 

"You know damn well what I'm doing," Boyd said. His voice was so warm, so knowing.

Raylan swallowed hard. "This ain't... Boyd... you know we can’t do this.” 

The smile on Boyd’s face widened. “Hell, Raylan. We can do anything we want. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

Boyd pressed his body full into Raylan’s so they touched everywhere, his hands framing Raylan’s face. Raylan closed his eyes and it was almost like it had been in the mine, pitch black and Boyd’s body against his, and Boyd’s arms around him, Boyd’s mouth at his ear, whispering that they were going to make it, that he’d get Raylan out if it was the last thing he did.

Boyd’s lips on his weren’t a shock; it was the only possible thing that could happen next. It was a wide, wet, messy kiss right from the start and it got Raylan going like no sweet little girl kiss ever had. He moaned around Boyd’s tongue, jerked when Boyd bit his lip, just opened himself up wider when Boyd went in for more. He let Boyd back him up against the crumbling boards of the shed, put his hand on Raylan’s dick and jerk him off slow and sweet, until his toes were curling in his boots and his breath was caught in a knot at the back of his throat. Boyd crooned nonsense in that soft, sing-song voice of his and Raylan kept telling him to _shut up, shut up_ , but Boyd just laughed and told Raylan he was real pretty like this and Raylan had to kiss him just to make him stop talking. 

It might have been that kiss that made him come so hard, that and the way Boyd’s hand slid down the back of his jeans, middle finger riding right into his crack, casual and possessive, like he knew Raylan would let him. Raylan arched against him, his teeth digging into his bottom lip, but not quite managing to stifle the desperate moan that pushed its way out of his chest.

Boyd sighed, his forehead resting on Raylan’s sweaty temple. “Dear God, Raylan. If you ain’t just the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.” 

He pushed his dick against Raylan’s hip and Raylan let him rub off on him as he leaned weak-kneed against the shed. Boyd didn’t even unzip, just rutted against him, his teeth digging into Raylan’s shoulder and his fingers digging into Raylan’s waist. He groaned long and low when he came and Raylan stood there panting, wanting to put his hands on Boyd, unzip him and sink down on his knees and lick him all up, but instead just standing there, one hand pressed lightly to the small of Boyd’s back, feeling the heat of his skin through his shirt.

“I’m leaving, Boyd,” he said when Boyd’s breathing had returned to normal. He felt Boyd stiffen against him.

“When?” He didn’t move, his forehead resting on Raylan’s shoulder. 

“Tonight. I gotta get out of here. And I gotta do it now.” Then he said it, what he’d promised himself he wouldn’t, cursing himself the moment it was out of his mouth. “You should come with me.”

Boyd chuckled. He turned his face into Raylan’s neck for just a minute, then he stepped away, and Raylan shivered, wanting him back.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Boyd’s eyes glittered, something unfamiliar lurking there. 

“I’ve got an idea.” He didn’t say anything more, because the whole thing was crazy. Maybe it was a dumb idea, and God knew how he’d ever put himself through college, but if he stayed in Harlan it was either the mine or following in Arlo’s footsteps and he’d ruled that out a long time ago. Now he’d ruled out the mine, so he was fresh out of options.

Boyd raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you have an _idea_?”

“You could –”

“I don’t think so, Raylan.” Boyd’s voice was hard, no trace of that sweetness he’d just been pouring into Raylan’s ear. 

He wouldn’t come. Of course, he wouldn’t come. Raylan had been stupid to ask. 

“Right.” Raylan shifted on his feet, unsure what to do next. He wanted Boyd in his arms again, but Boyd’s body language was saying clearly that Raylan would be rebuffed if he tried to touch him. In the space of a minute Raylan’s words had opened a chasm between them too wide to cross. 

“You take care then, Raylan,” Boyd said, clearly a dismissal.

This wasn’t the way Raylan wanted to leave it, but Boyd wasn’t giving him much choice.

“You too, Boyd.” He met Boyd’s eyes and for the first time in a long time he couldn’t read what he saw there.

Raylan headed down the path alongside the bar toward the road, already full of regrets. He didn’t stop though. If he stopped, he’d never make it out.

“You’ll be back,” was the last thing Boyd said to him.

 _No fucking way_ , Raylan thought.

 

Raylan sighed, rubbing his eyes. He walked around behind the bar, grabbed the bottle of Beam and poured himself another.

“You’re getting altogether too comfortable around here,” Lindsey said.

Raylan smiled at her, opened his mouth, about to make some quip about her being so solicitous of his _comfort_ , when the door banged open and Boyd Crowder walked into the bar.

“We’re closed,” Lindsey said, barely glancing up, then doing a double-take when she recognized him.

Raylan had turned around when he heard the door open. His eyes connected with Boyd’s just long enough for Raylan to realize that he was a little too drunk to deal with Boyd at the moment, and he turned around again, showing him his back.

“Didn’t you hear the lady? The bar is closed.” Raylan looked straight ahead. The effort of keeping his eyes forward caused a twinge between his brows, but he persevered obstinately.

Boyd walked up behind him. It made the muscles between Raylan’s shoulder blades contract, hairs rising on the back of his neck, turning his back to something that dangerous. 

Lindsey moved down to the other end of the bar, where Raylan knew she kept the shotgun. He gave her a shake of his head, just a slight one, not anything Boyd would notice. She picked up a glass at random and wiped it with the towel in her hand, keeping her eyes on Boyd.

“Now is that any way to greet an old friend?” Boyd was smiling at him. Raylan didn’t have to look at him to know that. He knew the inflections of Boyd’s voice, had learned them years ago in the pitch black of the mine he’d thought would be their tomb.

“You’re not my friend,” Raylan said.

“I beg to differ.”

“Well then, I’m not _your_ friend.”

“Now that would sadden me, Raylan,” Boyd said, in that too-sincere voice of his. “It truly would.” There was a heavy pause, but Raylan waited it out. He could always wait Boyd out, just that much more patient - or stubborn, more likely.

“Someday you’re going to be my friend again, Raylan,” Boyd said “Maybe when we’re old and gray and you are no longer an officer of the law. When you move back home – we’ll be friends again.”

“Never gonna happen, Boyd.”

Boyd frowned. “We’ll never be friends?”

Raylan turned to look at him then. “We’ll never be old and gray.”

Boyd had one elbow on the bar, head cocked, smirk tugging his mouth sideways. His eyes traveled over Raylan’s face, slow and searching, intimate and oddly appreciative. It was the way Boyd always looked at him, like he had every right to look, like maybe he had the right to do more than look. It made Raylan’s skin warm and something electric spark in his belly every single time. And every single time it pissed him the hell off.

As Raylan straightened, that look traveled down to his boots and back up. Boyd was pretty unabashed about it, for a boy from Harlan.

“It’s good to see you, Raylan. It’s been a long time.”

“Not long enough,” Raylan muttered, taking a drink from his glass. It was almost empty, just one more swallow and then he wouldn’t have an excuse to linger. Only he couldn’t leave Boyd here in the empty bar with Lindsey. He’d have to walk him out, make sure he got on his way.

"What're you doing here, Boyd?" Raylan said in a tone meant to convey _I am not in the mood for your bullshit_.

"Thought you might want to hear about the verdict," Boyd said.

"I heard."

"Thought you might want a first-hand account."

Raylan sighed. "And what have I ever done to give you the impression that I'd care?"

Boyd pursed his lips, like Raylan had said something that disappointed him. “He’s your daddy, Raylan.”

Raylan tossed back the rest of his whiskey. “He ain’t nothing to me. Never was, and less so now.”

“I’m gonna lock up, Raylan,” Lindsey called, from down at the other end of the bar. “You gonna be okay?”

“Fine.” She hesitated, glancing at Boyd as if to say _You sure?_. “I’m fine, Lindsey,” he said and she nodded, disappearing into the back room.

Boyd sighed. “I ain’t saying you don’t have cause. But he’s going away for life.”

“For a crime you committed.”

Boyd looked straight at him, gave him an intense stare that didn’t try to hide a thing. “I didn’t shoot Tom Bergen, Raylan.”

“Not the crime I’m talking about.”

“The murder of a State Trooper, that’s a life sentence right there. Didn’t matter what else he did.” 

Boyd would never admit it, but he didn’t try to hide it either. Raylan’s hands closed into fists. No reason it should matter, this one. God knows, Devil wasn’t the first, wasn’t even close. It shouldn’t make a damn bit of difference that Arlo was taking the hit for it. Like Boyd said, it’s not like it mattered.

And he _didn’t_ care, that’s the thing. Not about Arlo.

“I wonder,” Boyd said, gazing speculatively at Raylan. He waited for Boyd to continue, but he just stood there. Raylan told himself not to rise to the bait, but he couldn’t resist.

“ _What_ , Boyd?”

“Which of us has more notches on our gun.”

Raylan rolled his eyes. “What’re you getting at?”

“Just that we’re not so different, you and me.”

“Oh, I think we’re different,” Raylan said. “I think we’re a whole world of different.”

Boyd looked down at his drink, a smile on his face that was almost coy. “Do you now?”

The thing was, deep down, Raylan wasn’t so sure. Never had been. If he’d stayed in Harlan, would he have ended up like Boyd? If Boyd had been the one to leave, would he have ended up wearing a badge? Raylan couldn’t say for certain, and that thought had kept him up more nights than he was willing to admit.

And if Boyd had come with him? If they’d run off together? Raylan couldn’t picture that at all. Everything would have been so goddammed different, for both of them.

“Do you remember, before I left?” he said, words tumbling out in a rush. “Do you remember that night?”

“’Course I do,” Boyd said, still staring at the bar. He huffed a quiet laugh. “It’s not the kind of thing I’d be like to forget.”

Something squeezed tight in Raylan’s chest. “You should’ve come, Boyd. You should’ve done it.”

“I have thought on that more times than you may know,” Boyd said. “Some things, Raylan, they just weren’t meant to be.” 

Raylan didn’t say anything and after a moment Boyd sighed. “You take care, Raylan.”

His footsteps echoed in the silent bar. He shut the door softly behind him as he left. Raylan closed his eyes for a second, then reached for the bottle.


End file.
